


Sylleblossom Eyes

by JazzRaft



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Alternate Universe, Coffee Shops, Fluff, M/M, Romantic Fluff, Strangers to Lovers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-08
Updated: 2018-08-24
Packaged: 2019-04-20 07:47:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 8,739
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14256294
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JazzRaft/pseuds/JazzRaft
Summary: A canal-side café, a stranger in a window, and nights full of flowers. It's the Altissian dream every romantic on Eos has written about, and Nyx is living it. But while he sips on cappuccino fantasies and makes heart eyes at the beautiful vision across the street, his eternally exasperated waiter is having a nightmare of a time getting him to just kiss the boy.





	1. Night Bloomers

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Aithilin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aithilin/gifts).



The first time he sees him is like a page from a fairytale.

Nyx swears that he can even hear the swell of a string orchestra validating his staring as if it’s romantic cinema, instead of the slightly inebriated ogling of some weirdo from across the street.

Maybe he did imbibe a little too much after Weskham’s toast to close his first week of work. Maybe Altissia was just having the same effect on him that had enchanted tourists and scholars and artisans alike for generations.

Or maybe the man in the window was just so beautiful that the cynics might forgive Nyx for falling victim to the whole star-struck cliché.

He was framed by lunablooms, the delicate white flowers of the Western continent that only ever opened under moonlight. His skin was as pale and luminescent as the petals he tended, hair as inky black as the starlit waters of the canal, and each lock was struck through with the soft, dark gold of the shadows weaving between the street lanterns.

There were flowers threaded through the open shutters – windows rarely ever closed when it was summer in Altissia, he’d been told. There were tiny, terracotta pots hung on hooks just within the window-frame, spilling over with colorful blossoms that Nyx couldn’t quite make out in the dark. There were curly strings of ivy draping from the windowsill beneath his elbows where he folded his arms. He set his cup of water aside, let the potted plants drink up the offering, and took a breath of the salty night air.

Nyx could smell the silvery perfume of jasmine plants, carried on the draft over the canals. He thought that he might recognize the indigo shade of sylleblossoms tickling his eyes… though that part might have been the whiskey warping the shadows of the window, so rare were the blue flowers outside of Tenebrae.

The stranger looked like he’d been peering out from the frame of a dream. And he was just hazy enough in the vague, blurry lines of Nyx’s intoxication that he woke up the next morning thinking that was all he was.

A beautiful Altissian dream.

It took a sober stroll back through half-remembered lanes and a seat with a street-side view for Nyx to recapture the scent of jasmine and sea-salt and know that it was all real.

“Welcome to the Tonberry, sir. Might I take your order?”

Nyx was so delighted upon recognizing the window across the canal that he forgot a restaurant served any other purpose other than to admire a beautiful stranger from afar. Nyx forced his eyes to quickly rake through the little menu and glanced up at his waiter – a very straight-laced looking young man with stylish glasses and upswept brown hair.

“Err, just a mocha and a club sandwich please, thanks.”

It was mostly thanks to the Tonberry that Nyx found his way back to the street in the first place. Amidst his fears that the previous evening’s sights had all been conjured from his own mind, the idea of a wooden sign painted in the likeness of a tonberry wearing a chef’s hat had featured almost as prominently as the man in the window. He’d flipped through the guidebook Weskham had given him on the slim whim that he might find any such thing resembling the murderous little creatures that were said to lurk the woods of Lucis. His surprise rivaled his excitement when he found the daemonic hash slinger, and thereby validated his midnight visions as truth.

It was a cute little place, romanticizing what would otherwise be a sinister mascot. Lots of outdoor seating, chalkboard menus, and flowers on every table; the standard fare for Altissian dining on a tourist’s budget. Not too out of the way from the Maagho, either (if anything, the Maagho was the one out of the way from everything else). He opted to stop in for an early dinner after work. The Tonberry had been closed the night before, Nyx thought. Otherwise, he didn’t think he would have forgotten how great the coffee smelled.

While it was a delicious brew and curbed his sweet tooth once it was served, it had an adverse effect on his calm. The jitters kicked in about halfway through. Nyx started toying with the ripped seams of the sugar packets to give himself something else to do besides look like a possessed stalker staring up at a stranger’s window. Pretending that he was a slow eater quickly got to be obnoxious for such a simple sandwich – though it was a simply delicious sandwich, it wouldn’t be a far stretch to say he was savoring it. He ordered another coffee and a danish to buy himself a little more time and a little less scrutiny from the people wondering when he would give up the table and go home.

Nyx knew that he was being ridiculous. He knew that this was insane and he was putting way too much effort into merely seeing an absolute stranger that he doubted he’d be fortunate enough to meet on ground level. He knew that he was letting himself be romanced by the bohemian ideals of Altissia like all the rest, and that if his friends from back home could see him now, they would be swatting him upside the head for acting so stupid.

It was with the phantom feeling of Crowe’s palm upending his skull that Nyx nearly got up and left before he saw him again. But then a slip of movement in the window stilled him in his seat, and Nyx didn’t have to be a little bit drunk to feel like it was all worth it.

Though the hour was late, the stranger looked as if he’d just gotten out of bed. His midnight hair was all tousled, a loose-fitting shirt askew across his shoulders, and a cup of steaming something curled between his slim fingers. He blinked blearily out at Altissia’s dreamy lanes, leaning his chin into his palm and waiting for the smell of caffeine from across the canal to rouse him.

Nyx felt like he was dangerously shy of sighing like some sort of movie star groupie. He quickly dipped his face into his coffee cup – which was nearly as heavenly to taste as the stranger across the street was to watch.

There was a vine of odd conical blooms that draped down from the top corners of the window. The man leaned into the ends of where they tapered down, drawn by a scent that Nyx couldn’t catch. He wasn’t sure what they were, or if they were the flowers he’d mistaken for sylleblossoms the night before. He couldn’t make out any sylleblossoms now, but they would have made a beautiful frame for him, imagined or not.

Curiosity and self-consciousness coaxed Nyx into Moogle searching for the flower that enclosed the space around his stranger’s face. He wasn’t sure how long he spent glancing between window frame and phone screen and studying all there was to know about lilacs, but it felt too short when his waiter reappeared with the check.

“Will that be all for tonight, sir?” the man asked.

While his words were the paradigm of perfect service politeness, there was an urgency to his tone which guilted Nyx into remembering that he’d likely over-stayed his patronage. He glanced up once more to the window across the street, only to find its sleepy centerpiece receding back out of frame.

“Yeah. I’m good. This was excellent, by the way.”

He gestured at the crumbs on his plate and the coffee stains in his cup. And that seemed to appease some of the impatience his waiter might bear him.

“We’ll hope to see you again, then. Have a good rest of the evening.”

“Yeah, you too.”

When Nyx left, he wandered as close to the edge of the canal as he dared to catch a whiff of jasmine off the air. And to see the lunablooms race open with the rising of the moon over the city.

He spent the night Moogling lilacs and lunablooms and jasmine and coffee orders, lying awake in bed until late into the night and wishing he was as talented as the street artists that trafficked the boulevards by day. Because he wanted to capture that image forever. He wanted to inscribe every detail to a canvas, lest one day he was separated from seeing that sight in person.

But he was no artist. Just a bartender. Lost in the romance of a beautiful city and a mysterious stranger.

He’d just have to go and see him again. And besides, the coffee at the Tonberry just might have been the best he’d ever had. And his waiter _had_ said he expected him to visit again. He’d hate to disappoint the guy.

Nyx fell asleep with visions of sylleblossom eyes and swirls of chocolate coffee. And he prayed that same seat at the Tonberry would still be free tomorrow night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just the start of a little something new that Aithilin enabled! Might be a little cute story, might end up longer, I haven't planned too much into it yet. Let me know what you think!


	2. Pricker Bush

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> With every rose comes its thorns. And this thorn is none too pleased by another voyeur ogling his pretty flower.

Much to Ignis’s damnably undying vexation, this was not the first time he’d watched this happen. Nor, he cringed to understand, was it likely to be the last.

He knew what he was in for the second he saw the man sit down. He recognized that wayward fixation, the wanton trajectory of a stranger’s eyes upon the window. He knew that lovelorn look of wistful anticipation, the face of a man over-indulged on tourists’ ravings and puffed-up poets’ purple recollections of romance, trivialized by the brochures’ boast that “Altissia is the _Most_ Romantic City in the _World._ ”

“Damn, Iggy. How ‘bout you tell me what you really think?”

“I _think_ that you’ve only heard half of what I’ve said, as per usual.”

The knife hit the cutting board with a hard _clunk_. Ignis huffed at the uneven onion slice that his frustration had resulted in. He set it apart from the neat, thin rings yet unsullied by his annoyance. Better to have it happen here, in his own kitchen, than to bring it with him into the Tonberry, he supposed. He wasn’t going to move up to a cooking position with that attitude.

“I think you’re working yourself up over nothing, _as per usual_ ,” Gladio’s voice sighed, his breath hissing through the receiver like a mildly off-put puff of wind.

“You’re not the one that has to stand there and swallow all the same starry-eyed stupidity of these people, acting like they’re somehow more special than the last dozen and a half that came before them.”

Gladiolus snorted. “Careful, Iggy. All the eligible bachelors in Altissia might take you for a cynic with talk like that.”

Ignis grumbled without comment. If being _realistic_ defined him as a cynic, then “all the eligible bachelors in Altissia” could keep on with their pining without him. Besides, he’d seen half of the herd already, sitting moony-eyed in his table route. If they were the most impressive specimens Altissia had to offer, she could keep them. She could do him one better and keep them away from the Tonberry, and far, _far_ away from Noct.

“Someone has to look out for him,” Ignis growled, juggling the phone to his other shoulder when he felt his neck beginning to cramp. “After the incident with the cortado fanatic? I don’t think you can hold it against me for being a hair bit wary about a series of strangers ogling my best friend from across the street like a bunch of pre-pubescent voyeurs.”

“Maybe you should start charging admission,” Gladio chuckled.

Unfortunately, Ignis didn’t have another aromatic he could noisily butcher to express his distaste for such a suggestion. But he did have a plate he set rather vocally onto the granite countertop.

“I know, I know, bad joke,” Gladiolus placated him. “I get it, alright? It used to be cute, but now it’s getting creepy. How ‘bout I swing by tomorrow and give you a second opinion on the new guy? He’s probably harmless.”

“That’s what you said about the taxidermist.”

Ignis could see his shamed pout as if Gladio had just snapped a selfie and pasted it right over his glasses. While he let Gladio chew on that particular failure, Ignis finished arranging the components of his crudo, piling pale pink slices of fish onto the plate, some red onion, a few olives, a little arugula, a lot more lemon juice. A generous drizzle of olive oil, a spoonful of grated tomato, and he had himself a clean, summer meal, fit for the Grand Palace.

“Around six thirty tomorrow evening, then?” Ignis proposed. “I’ll leave a seat open for you at the counter. And if you’d like to wear your brass knuckles to the occasion…”

“G’night, Iggy.”

“Until then.”

Ignis hung up, sprinkled some flaky salt over the dish, and almost forgot to take a picture before he stuck a fork in it. He didn’t have the same eye for lighting and angles and all that technical jargon Prompto often plagued him with. One quick pic, centered, colorful, caught all the ingredients, and he sent it on its way, texting, “ _You have my thanks. Truly a dish worthy of such valiant sacrifice.”_

His ass hadn’t even hit the couch cushions before Noctis texted back in a huff. _“My pants still smell like the canal. Feel better if that son of a bitch was cooking in MY apartment.”_

_“As I said. Sacrifice.”_

_“You suck.”_

_“Good morning to you, too.”_

The moon was just rising.

* * *

He’d been working this register for so long that he could input bills on one hand and pay his taxes through his phone on the other. All while making pretend small talk with his friend at the counter, and all while keeping the central subject of his stress within his sight.

“How are you even doing that?” Gladio asked, transfixed by the fingers flitting across the keys.

“Practice,” Ignis said, eyes unmoving as he watched the new regular at Table Six.

“You’re spooky, Iggy.”

“And you’re not being nearly as scary as I’d hoped you’d be.”

Ignis rolled his eyes as he pulled up the receipt, darting over to Table Ten with a service smile and the necessary platitudes of expected appreciation in order to earn a decent tip. His smile clicked back into a serious line as he rejoined Gladiolus, clapping the accursed Table Six in the iron shackles of his stare over his tattooed shoulder.

The man only ever paid in cash, so Ignis had no signature to try and decipher a name off of a credit card receipt. And yet, Gladiolus thought he had nothing to worry about, not even when he could trace no name, no bank account, nor a place of address to the stranger that was so infatuated with his friend.

What if he was some sort of international criminal, trying to lay low in a city with too many faces to search? What if he was on the run from murder charges, or some grand heist yet unsolved in a faraway country? What if he was dangerous? He _looked_ like he could be dangerous, with that scarred brow and the broad shoulders and those inked arms and his devious smirk and…

“His name is Nyx, he moved here a week and a half ago. He’s working bar for Weskham, down at the Maagho.”

That casual stream of information brought Ignis’s conspiring thoughts to a roaring halt, swerving his glare onto Gladiolus and sharpening it to a fine point once it clashed with the man’s cheeky little grin.

“You couldn’t tell me that _before_ I made an utter ass of myself over the phone last night?”

“Only ever after, Iggy,” Gladio laughed. “Besides, I’ve barely met the guy. Just started seeing him around the Maagho on my deliveries. Weskham mentioned he hired on some extra help.”

Ignis pursed his lips and halved his attention back towards table six. Weskham Armaugh was no sufferer of fools – that was for certain. He held the staff of the Maagho to the same standards with which he held his menu. The man had an expert eye for authentic goods. Only the finest stock, fresh off the gondolas. Ignis could see why this _Nyx_ was picked for behind the bar-top display.

“Still going to keep worrying, aren’t you?” Gladio sighed.

“You know me. Always err on the side of caution.”

“I think it’s because you try too much of your own merchandise.” He lifted his cappuccino to his lips, tilting the frothy bay liquid towards Ignis. “You’re wired to snap. Hate for it to be on one of the nice ones.”

Whether or not Nyx could be considered “one of the nice ones” was still up for debate, so far as Ignis was concerned. Though he held Weskham’s judgment in high esteem, there were plenty of decent _looking_ fellows that had sat at that exact table, fawning over delusions of romance without a single word spoken to the object in the window.

Presently, Nyx was plucking pieces off of a croissant, chewing absently at flaky pastry whilst scrolling through his phone. His jaw worked slowly, savoring each piece, his brow smoothed in quiet concentration as he picked through links that Ignis often caught out of the corner of his eye when he took away empty plates. Usually flowers; what kinds, what climates, what symbolism was ever attributed to each and every one.

If he could credit Nyx with anything, it was that he took an equal amount of interest in Noct’s interests as he did with Noctis himself. So intent was he on his research today that he didn’t even notice the muse of his affection had stepped outside of his frame.

“You better have sushi on the menu today, Specs. Because I’ve been dreaming about that bream you didn’t share with me all day.”

Noctis yawned and stretched his arms over his head as he came up to the counter, propping himself up on his favorite stool next to Gladio. He leaned his face into his hand, eyes still closed as if he’d never woken up in the first place. He rested curled fingers expectantly upon the countertop, centered on the spot right in front of him where the handle of his coffee cup was always turned and waiting for him.

“Is that all it takes to lure you from your tower?” Ignis teased, whisking a cup away to the cradle of the espresso machine. “If I had known you planned on joining us, I would have brought leftovers.”

“It’s because I’m here,” Gladio said, swinging an arm around Noct’s neck. “He just wanted to come over to see his best bro after so long, huh Noct?”

While Noctis struggled to disengage the heavy lock of Gladio’s arm barred across his shoulders, Ignis prepared his preferred order and parsed out curious glances towards Table Six. As he expected, Nyx’s eyes had latched onto Noctis in stupefied fascination once he recognized the same dark hair and fair features, now in three dimensions rather than the single pane of distance from across the canal. And, as could also always be expected, Noctis was oblivious to the attention.

“I’m not fishing for new test subjects if you’re going to keep the finished experiments all to yourself,” Noctis grumbled as Ignis set his latte in its place of honor at Noct’s fingertips.

“I can’t be blamed for having dinner at a perfectly decent hour when you’re just waking up to breakfast.”

Noctis groaned into his coffee cup, breathing in the fragrant steam through his nose. “Fish is a breakfast food.”

“Raw? I don’t think even you could stomach that first thing in the evening.”

“But I can stomach my usual. Please and thank you?”

Ignis smiled and passed on the order to the kitchen – smoked salmon breakfast bowl; hold the mushrooms, hold the spinach. Between serving the last few customers of the day as the dark oranges of sunset rolled through the canals, Ignis continued to pay special attention to Nyx and his special attentions.

He was waiting for him to make his move, to take this rare opportunity that all the others before him had seized the second Noctis was within flirting distance. He was waiting for the swaggering professions of attraction, the clichéd gestures of insistent courtship, and the tired tropes of romantic recitation.

Curiously, Nyx stayed fixed to his table, struggling to keep his eyes on his coffee cup, trying so hard to look like he wasn’t eavesdropping on Noct’s and Gladio’s casual rapport. A tiny, malicious speck on Ignis’s protective shield couldn’t help but try to catch him in the act by startling him with a well-timed word and quick cut into his periphery.

“Anything else I can get you?”

To his dismay, Nyx didn’t jump two feet from his seat into a lapful of warm coffee like he had hoped. His eyes barely twitched as he glanced up at him, lips smoothing into the standard smile as he merely asked for the check. Ignis masked his disappointment for his failed scare tactics behind the serviceman’s façade.

“I’ve gotta get going,” Noctis was saying as Ignis returned to the register, finishing his meal. “Prompto’s getting antsy. Can I get another one of these to go?” Noctis indicated his empty mug while placating a barrage of eager text messages.

“Think he’s almost done with these night shoots?” Gladio asked. “Need to get you two back on a regular schedule with the rest of us.”

“Trying to give me a bedtime, grandpa? Maybe if the rest of you weren’t so afraid of the dark, you could get on _our_ schedule.”

“I prefer to _see_ who I’m talking to in the cold light of day rather than bump around town in the middle of the night,” Ignis said, setting down a full paper cup for Noctis to take away with him. “You’re able to walk right into the canal. If they fish your body from the water one day, I’m only going to stand over your corpse to say ‘I told you so.’”

“You’re a good friend, Specs.”

Noctis dropped him as generous a tip as always, grabbed his coffee, and headed out. It was Nyx’s last chance to intercept him. Ignis was fully prepared to send Gladio after them when Nyx would inevitably get up from his seat to accost Noctis on his way out with dinner propositions and awful pickup lines.

Ignis could time the point of collision to the second. Noctis would pass the table. Two steps away, Nyx would rise to his feet and trot after him with some fumbled, fabricated excuse to talk to him. Noctis would shy away, surprised, offer his polite rejections, and the true test of Nyx’s character would commence from there.

Ignis was incredibly taken aback when Noctis skirted the table, Nyx lifted his head to watch him go… and didn’t get up to chase him like the deranged stalker Ignis was half-hoping he might be, just to have an excuse to beat him up. Instead, Nyx hastily hid his face in a coffee cup Ignis knew was long empty, cheeks a humble shade of pink that he wasn’t expecting on a face so prone to confident, casual smirks.

Instead of racing after his tail like a voracious hound dog, Nyx secreted puppy dog glances after Noctis until he had vanished along the boulevard. He sat for a few more quiet moments until Ignis delivered his check, tipped as well as he did every other day, then got up and went home, walking the opposite direction that Noctis had gone.

Ignis could feel Gladio watching him, smiling, gauging how he would react to such a drastic change in his expectations.

“Well,” Ignis grumbled. “He gets points for originality.”


	3. Orchid House

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nyx braves the knotted jungle of his own nerves to at last seek out his elusive stranger and present him with a gift.

Nyx was starting to think he’d been lonely for just a little bit too long. It should not have been this hard to choose flowers for someone he liked.

His romantic life was by no means barren, but it wasn’t as if he had a revolving door of bedmates, either. He had lovers, not conquests; each one bookmarked a chapter in his life worth remembering, for all the good times they gave him, as well as all the bad.

Some relationships went up in smoke, scraping his throat raw screaming and turning his heart so dark and cloudy that it felt hard to breathe for a long time after. Others went out in a wisp of steam, like the last bit of warmth wafting off the top of a coffee cup; they had just run their course and wandered onward, into the morning mist.

He was shaped by the people he’d loved and lost, though none of Nyx’s experience felt like a badge of expertise. If he really knew what he was doing when it came to matters of the heart… well, he wouldn’t be single in the most romantic city in the world now, would he?

He used to think that he was pretty good with gifts. It was never a difficult task for him to follow the absent instinct of his partner’s eye as they meandered through a shopping district. He used to be able to pick out an item to surprise them with long before they ever decided that they really wanted it – a gambit, of course, trying to anticipate whether or not their interest would endure beyond a passing glance. But, more often than not, it was the fact he merely paid attention that earned him purchase in his partner’s good graces.

Either he’d grown rusty in the time that passed since his last break-up, or the unique circumstances of this particular affection necessitated a different approach. Because it was beginning to alarm him just how jittery with schoolboy indecision a single trip to the florist could make him feel.

It was a nice place – every place in Altissia was a nice place – with a flower cart parked outside the entrance that perfectly framed the store-front window, scrawled over with the business name in pretty, gilded cursive. There were flowers in pots sitting out on the cobblestones, raising colorful, burst-open faces to the sun. There were flowers dripping from the edges of boxes like spilled paint, pinks and whites and pale shades of blue. Inside were rows of pre-made bouquets, refrigerators crowded with carefully cut flowers, and shelves full of sculpted garden spirits to protect any purchase from gluttonous pests.

The greenhouse, opening off the back of the shop, overwhelmed Nyx with color. Tropical blossoms were carefully tended to by the shop attendant, who was friendly and attentive, and offered her aid when she recognized the troubled frown between his brows. But as dire as he was in need of suggestions, he didn’t know how to give her the context to help him without sounding like an obsessive voyeur in need of a restraining order, instead of a star-struck stranger wandering moony-eyed along the midnight boulevards.

It was the eyes that finally inspired Nyx into action. Deep, bright droplets of blue glimmering from beneath fallen shadows of chaotic black hair. As soft of a blue as the sylleblossoms he’d imagined on that first night, and now made Nyx wonder if it had really been the man’s eyes he’d seen in the murky dark of his memory after all. He hadn’t been able to see them from the distance of the window, merely romanced himself at night with the possible spectrum of colors that he could paint between the lines. Brown, green, blue, and every shade in-between could fill in the blanks, each one perfecting itself to the portrait in his head.

Nyx had not prepared himself for how striking his stranger’s eyes would be up close. He never expected that he would really _see_ him out in the open, like two normal people living in the same city might – though he had no idea why; it was an easy enough assumption to make that an apartment resident neighboring a café just might frequent the place when hungry. Seeing him in person – or as close to “in person” as pining, puppy dog eyes might qualify – suddenly made it all feel real in a way the separateness of the canal street had persuaded him against believing.

He’d glanced at Nyx in that absent-minded way people passing in the streets often did, looking up just to see where they were going, just looking through another person en route to their destination, and happening to meet eyes for barely even a second as they did. It was a fleeting, curious kind of magnetism, the eyes of strangers shared in a city street. Nyx knew it didn’t mean a single thing, that it was no indicator of mutual interest at all… but it had been just enough of a glance for Nyx to finally see the true color of his eyes, and his heart had skittered like a spooked spiracorn in his chest.

He knew what he wanted the instant he saw the same color peering at him amongst the orchids in the greenhouse corner.

He couldn’t afford the regular size, but the luscious blue bloom came in a miniature form more within his price range. It was planted in a palm-sized white pot, a tag printed with instructions looped delicately around the stem. The attendant plopped it in a cellophane wrapper, then a brown paper bag for transport. Fortunately, it was Nyx’s day off, so he didn’t have to put the little waxen blossom through too many trials of travel before delivering it to (what he hoped would be) its final destination.

While the orchid was in for easy transit from florist to cafe, Nyx’s ticket to newfound confidence began to expire the instant he set foot on the now-familiar avenue to the Tonberry.

_This is such a stupid idea. You don’t know his name, you don’t even know if he’s single!_ _Gladiolus could be his boyfriend for all you know!_

He’d been touchy enough with the man when Nyx had first seen him in the café, big, tattooed arm hooked around his neck in an easy affection akin to Crowe’s one-armed hugs when she was lovey on too much of the old Hut’s cheap beer. Nyx’s gut reaction had not been to interpret the gesture as anything resembling romantic… but then again, he’d been too mesmerized by the sound of the stranger’s voice to _really_ notice.

It felt like the tiny painted butcher up on its lofty sign was mocking him, each step nearer polishing off a finer glint of malice in its round yellow eyes. Nyx’s arm flexed protectively around his dainty passenger, shielding the orchid within the careful crook of his elbow against the chartreuse chef’s sightlessly discerning stare.

_Screw it_ , Nyx coached himself as he claimed his favorite seat beneath the awning. He set the little flower in its paper bag on the table, casting his gaze across the canal like a fishing line, trying to reel in the eye of his catch. But it wasn’t the right time. Like the elusive silver scales of the fish that stayed submerged beneath the marina until dusk darkened their waters, the man in the window never appeared before sunset.

“Can’t seem to scare you off.”

Nyx flicked a smile up at his server – Ignis, as the mandatory, daily introductions had branded into his skull. “Can’t seem to make a crappy cup of coffee.”

“The usual, then?” Ignis asked, with his casual air of indifference that Nyx had grown oddly comfortable with since making himself a regular.

“Yeah. And how ‘bout…” – He peered around him towards the glass cases of pastry beneath the counter, presented like open chests of pirate’s gold to tempt wayward summer sailors to confectionary catastrophe. Nyx pointed – “one of those.”

“One café mocha and an almond croissant,” Ignis recited from his notepad – more mandatory employee dialogue, as if neither of them could have comprehended the order the first time Nyx said it. “Anything else?”

Nyx shook his head, and Ignis swept off to the kitchen, swift as a broomstick brushing dust from the flagstones in his wake.

The Tonberry was quiet, the mute click and clatter of ceramic tableware subdued in the laze of the late evening. The stillness should have been soothing, a soft infection of saltwater scents and quiet conversation. But Nyx remained anxious beneath the glare of the green gourmet, swinging in the sea-breeze overhead like a pendulum measuring out his doom.

His gaze skimmed between the window across the street and the meager offering of appeal wilting in the shade of his bag. He barely noticed Ignis when he returned with his order, parroting the titles of each item once more to ensure correctness before marching on to the completion of another café task. Nyx soaked his dry throat in hot coffee and prayed to his mother’s old gods that the caffeine would give him enough courage to put in another order on his server’s next pass.

The Tonberry was empty and close to closing by the time that courage kicked in, two cups of coffee and many missed opportunities to ask a favor later.

“Hey, this might seem like a weird request…”

While Ignis did not pause in his routine clean-up of Nyx’s table, an arched brow in his direction let Nyx know that he was listening.

“The other day, when Amicitia was here – I work with him, I take it you guys are friends? Anyway, another man came in, maybe you know him, too” – he was careful not to describe him as “ _the man in the window across the street that I’ve been staring at for a week_ ” – “Dark hair” – as black as the midnight waters when he first saw him – “blue eyes…” – as clear and dark blue as an afternoon sky and _Bismark’s blubbery bottom, keep it together, man!_

“Yes,” Ignis cut in. “I’m familiar.”

Nyx nicked his gaze on Ignis’s sharp, slice of a glance across the canal. Of course he’d be familiar with a person living within twenty feet of his place of business. Of course if he was friends with Gladiolus, he’d be friends with his friends, too.

He should have asked the delivery boy more about his acquaintance first before chasing this impulse to buy a stranger flowers. But he didn’t believe he was anywhere near friendly enough with Gladiolus to ask him about his personal attachments. Nyx was even less familiar with Ignis in the tiny frame of time since he’d decided to frequent the Tonberry, but he had a plan and he was sticking to it. And if it backfired, well, he’d just have to take it like a man and move on with his life. Let it fade into a smiling scar of humiliation for them all to look back on and laugh at.

Nyx hadn’t been a hormonal teenager in a long time. He could handle rejection like an adult. But he knew he’d kick himself for eternity if he didn’t at least _try._ He breathed out the rest of his nerves and slid the paper bag over to Ignis.

“If you happen to see him again, can you give him this from me?”

Ignis stared at the little gift in blank skepticism, one hand balancing dishes and cups while the other parted the paper top of the bag to investigate. Nyx could not decipher the cool look in his eyes as he scrutinized the orchid inside.

“Very well,” Ignis said. “I’ll be sure to pass it along.”

The next evening, Nyx returned after a full day of work, exhausting his nerves to a dull buzz by the time he collapsed into his chair at the café. He’d prepared himself for the worst, had written out his apologies for any discomfort his presumptions may have caused to all parties involved in his head, and had already planned out his recovery treatment for any shame his actions may have brought him in the fallout weeks to come.

When Ignis set a pre-made cup of coffee in front of him before he’d even ordered, Nyx almost thought it was an anticipatory apology for being denied in his attraction.

“A gift for a gift,” Ignis told him, clipped and crisp as always before hurrying Nyx into the motions of ordering his food.

While the Tonberry wasn’t overly busy, Ignis rushed off to take orders and clear tables before Nyx could ask him anything else. He spun the paper cup in a curious circuit, as if it would give him any more of a clue as to how his gift had been received. When he found none, he drew it to his lips to taste. The gesture directed his eyes up to the window, and he nearly spit his favorite coffee across the table when he saw it.

In the corner of the window, blooming proudly towards the setting sun, was his little blue orchid, curtain brushing the darkness behind it, as if hastily hiding the retreat of matching blue eyes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally starting to get my creative juices back after a bit of a dry spell, and nervous Nyx is a nice breath of fresh air to work back to. If you're enjoying the romantic neurosis of your favorite dashing disaster gay, please leave a comment to support him on his quest for true love!


	4. Horticulturist

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ignis once used to pride himself on his patience. Just last week, in fact. Feels like last year, dealing with these two simpletons. Honestly, how hard is it to pick up the damn phone and dial?

“They’re both such _idiots_ , Gladio.”

“Sounds like a match made by the Astrals, then,” Gladio chuckled across the line.

It was so not funny. Not anymore. If he could trade his position in all of this with Gladio for _just one day_ , surely, his friend wouldn’t be even remotely amused by the evasive antics of these two fools.

He could tolerate it the first few times, but now, they were just _exhausting,_ Hexatheon have mercy on him. _Days_ of delivering constantly changing variations of exotic flora and “on-the-house” coffees like contraband from beneath the shop counter had Ignis at his wit’s end with these people.

“Would you _please_ just call the man?” he’d begged Noctis, just that evening, after the café had closed and Nyx had finally been made to leave as per the dictation of business hours.

Ever since the revelation of his (hardly) secret admirer, Noctis refused to retreat from his hiding place behind his curtains until after closing. It wasn’t that Nyx scared him or anything, he assured Ignis, once he spirited himself across the street for a report under the cover of darkness. It was just that “well, um, you see, I, err” and a bunch of other inarticulate babble of unformed excuses kept Noctis from venturing into the Tonberry for his usual, at his usual time.

All of those ramblings came to a screeching stop once Ignis presented him with whatever offering Nyx had brought to express his affection for Noctis that day.

After the successful orchid/cappuccino exchange earlier in the week – and after a doubling of Ignis’s tip and an IOU scribbled on that day’s check – Nyx patterned his regular visits to the Tonberry with a new gift for Ignis to pass on in his stead.

Ignis didn’t mind it the first time. He’d been surprised, of course, and pleasantly, at that, when he’d peered into the package to find – not a limb or the skin of a dead animal, thus proving his suspicions about Nyx were correct for him to rub in Gladio’s face after a swift call to the authorities – but rather, a flower. Totally innocent, and imparted into Ignis’s care with such imploring earnestness that anything less than his full cooperation would paint Ignis as the antagonist of their little B-movie romance.

He thought it was silly, maybe a little bit cowardly for Nyx not to pass on the gift himself – though that may have been the last, stubborn bias Ignis had against him talking. Plus, he preferred a more direct approach when it came to flirtation, but then, it wasn’t _him_ that was being romanced here. Everyone had a different preference, and once he saw Noct’s reaction to the surprise, he knew he had no place to judge.

Noctis loved it, of course, in his slow, quiet way that, to a stranger, might be construed as blank disinterest built over with false sincerity. But Ignis knew better, knew all too well that the most meaningful gifts he received were accepted with shock, stalling Noct’s smile from immediately spreading, and even after his lips did catch up with the warm, fuzzy feeling the gift elicited, he struggled to let it fully form – an unfortunate by-product from a history of being manipulated for his true feelings.

He _had_ to return the gesture. He had to know who this anonymous admirer of his was, and thus the negotiation – Ignis was traded as many favors as Noctis could afford to give him for the information – of Nyx’s favorite table and coffee order was settled on, and Ignis found himself roped into the role of coffee courier.

After the orchid, it was a lily – white for the promise of pure intentions, Ignis thought, and he wondered if that was more for his benefit than for Noct’s. After the lily, a rose, of delicate, lavender petals. Ignis had to look up the meaning of that one, just to be on the safe side. He huffed, halfway between disappointment that it didn’t mean something more carnal – and thereby too much for Noctis too soon – and halfway impressed.

Lavender roses were said to represent enchantment, Moogle Search informed him. Ignis would be lying to himself if he didn’t admit he was a _little_ enchanted with the sentiment himself… Though he still thought they were being ridiculous.

Which brought Ignis to the point of begging for Noctis to make the first move if Nyx wouldn’t, confiding in him the name of his admirer that he spied on from his apartment window, and even going so far as to procure him the number of the Maagho to call during Nyx’s shift.

He’d _almost_ gotten Nyx’s personal number on this last delivery – a night-blooming flower from the distant islands of Galahd, from which, Gladio informed him, Nyx had moved from – he knew a lot about the man for someone who just walked a couple crates of fish off a boat into the Maagho’s freezer twice a week. Ignis saw Nyx shove a tag with his name and number into his pocket on his last pass of the table, leaving the potted bloom to his care in the same anonymous state he always did.

_So close._ And _so what_ if Ignis took it upon himself to usher things along at a little bit of a livelier pace.

He didn’t know what he was thinking, assuming Noctis would pounce on the name and number the first night Ignis gave them to him.

“I can’t just call him up while he’s working!” Noctis had said, pale features blooming pink as the pointed foreign petals of Nyx’s latest gift. “That’d be creepy. Wouldn’t it be creepy? I mean, I’m not even supposed to know he works there, am I? Do I? I guess I could use the excuse that I know Weskham…”

After an hour of mumbling to himself about elaborate back stories he could provide on a call to the floating restaurant and ultimately leading Ignis to believe that he would _never_ call the place first, he resolved to meddle in the reverse. With Noct’s very hesitant permission, Ignis scrawled his number in neat, legible characters on the next coffee Noctis bought for Nyx.

And wouldn’t you know it… Nyx was just as much of an idiot as the man he was trying to woo.

“Have you called him yet?”

“Err, no, I got busy with work last night…”

“Ah. Is that why you were here an hour earlier than usual?”

Nyx bit his lip and made up an excuse with glaringly opponent facts about why he didn’t call Noctis every time Ignis asked him. And Noctis, in turn, would fumble his way into his blushing gibberish of not-even-excuses every time Ignis asked him.

Which brought Ignis back to the present, now bemoaning their uselessness into the phone to a spectator who was so humored by his misery that it was bordering on sadistic.

“Give it time,” Gladio advised. “One of them will snap eventually.”

Gladio’s sage words of advice column wisdom were about as useless as the two smitten men refusing to call each other like two schoolchildren sharing stickers on the playground because they were incapable of verbalizing that they “like-liked” each other.

Ugh. He was growing impatient with the whole affair, which he was well aware he had no right to be. It wasn’t his romance, it wasn’t himself that was waiting for a call that refused to find the courage to come. This wasn’t about him, and he wasn’t usually so vain as to assume participation in such a thing. Maybe it was the fact that this was different, that Nyx was finally a man that might be worth Noct’s time, that the mold Ignis had grown so familiar with from that table on the boulevard had been broken in such a gentle, unassuming sort of way.

“It’s too late, I’m far too invested now to wait them out,” Ignis admitted, stabbing a tomato with his fork – he was so tired from trying to persuade Nyx, then Noct, into calling each other that night, that the most he could bother to scrounge up for dinner when he got home was a bowl of pasta with some raw tomatoes thrown in (and a little olive oil, some basil, salt and pepper; he wasn’t going to let his taste suffer _that_ much over a couple of lovestruck morons).

“This from the guy that was ready to sharpen the pitchforks not too long ago.”

“Evolution, dear Gladio, is what separates the civilized folk from the barbarians.”

“Wow, Iggy,” he deadpanned. “You should have been a philosopher or something.”

If matchmaker didn’t work out for him, he just might have to be – he would certainly be cynical enough for it, if he wasn’t already.

“If they refuse to take advantage of the convenience of modern communication, then we’re just going to have to do this the old fashioned way.”

“ _We?_ ”

Of course, he meant “ _he_ ,” given that he seemed to be the only man within this block of Altissia that was even slightly proficient in the conduct of fundamental social skills – Gladio stated he resented that remark before they exchanged “good nights” and hung up. Whereas Gladio would have likely gone about things more passively if he was squeezed into Ignis’s polished shoes, Ignis preferred a more proactive approach.

“What’ll it be today?” he asked of Nyx the following evening, subtly turning the face of his watch up to check the time.

“Club sandwich and a mocha, Ignis. Thank you,” Nyx said, half-distracted by the next addition to his Moogle Search history – cacti; Ignis hoped that search resulted in an aborted purchase.

He didn’t really hear Ignis when he replied in the same formal tone of time-sensitive food preparation as always, that, “Very well. Your order will be done within thirty to sixty minutes.”

He whisked off to the next table before Nyx could process the absurdity of the response. Ignis didn’t think he even realized what he said until twenty minutes had truly gone by and his stomach was beginning to growl.

“Everything going alright behind the curtain there?” he teased on one of Ignis’s passes – one he’d hoped had been far enough away that he could excuse himself from seeing Nyx wave him down, but alas.

“Apologies, we’re experiencing some technical difficulties at the moment.”

Nyx quirked a brow and deliberately did not point out the swift service and satisfied smiles on all the other patrons surrounding him. He merely smiled in that infuriating, ingratiatingly patient way of his that tested the paradigm of how much Ignis was supposed to hate him.

“That’s fine. Can I get the coffee to go then?”

“We’re out of paper cups.”

Nyx stared at him, waiting for Ignis to crack with a laugh to indicate that he was joking. The excuse had snapped off Ignis’s tongue with such whiplash sharpness that there had been no doubt in his mind that Nyx would believe it. But he was quicker than Ignis gave him credit for – all evidence with the damn phone number debacle to the contrary.

“Right,” he said, slow and smiling and totally unperturbed by the ridiculousness of Ignis’s excuses.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t enough for Nyx to indulge him by staying where he was seated until Noctis had no choice but to come down before the café closed and Ignis was off his shift. And yet, even without any service, Nyx still found it in his heart to tip his waiter, the damnable gentleman.

Well, that was a colossal failure, but Ignis refused to be disheartened. He knew Noctis better, and thereby, hoped he would be easier to stall the next evening.

He was right. Noctis was best motivated by the promise of food, and Ignis managed to lure him into the café long before closing with the enticing descriptions of a new flounder dish he wanted him to test out. He saw Noctis in his window, flitting fretful glances at the then empty table at which his paramour-to-be always occupied, before braving the canal to try this new fish, no doubt thinking he could finish and leave long before Nyx arrived.

He gobbled the fish down, barely pausing long enough to answer Ignis’s questions of critique, constantly looking over his shoulder in as unsubtle a fashion as a behemoth in a department store for a sign of Nyx. But Ignis would not be rushed – he’d cuff Noctis to the damn stool if that was what it would take. He stalled and distracted and insisted as much as he could, as neurotically glancing at the table as Noctis was all night long, and gods be damned _, Nyx didn’t even show._

All of his efforts, wasted! Where in the bloody blazes was he? The one night of the summer he decided not to come would have been the one night Ignis was sure he would have achieved a “chance” encounter between the two. He would have gotten them talking, in person, gotten them to flirt a little, make plans, get on a damn date, at long last.

He wouldn’t have been even remotely surprised if Nyx had, in fact, shown up as his regular visits predicted him to, but saw Noctis at the counter, and immediately turned around before Ignis could catch him.

_“Idiots!_ ”

“It’s alright, Iggy,” Gladio said, with a solemn squeeze to his shoulder. “I won’t say it.”

_I told you so. I told you not to meddle. I was right, you were wrong, nah nah nah._

He hated him a little bit, but it could have been the spike in his coffee making him more embittered about the whole thing than he had any justification for being. He was ready to give up. He’d done all he could for these two imbeciles. If they wanted to date, one of them needed to act like the adult and make it happen. He wasn’t their babysitter.

Just as he was ready to throw in the towel, just as he was ready to drink himself into a stupor that would hopefully help him forget all about his ambitions of romantic encouragement… a ray of sunshine on the dark waters.

“Gooood morning, gentleman – or, well, evening for you guys.”

Prompto knocked on the glass doors of the shop, shuffling up to the counter to bounce up on the stool next to Gladio, completely disregarding the “WE ARE CLOSED” sign clapping mutely against the front door when he saw them through the glass.

“Is it time for the gremlins to come out and play already?” Gladio teased, gently.

“At long last,” Prompto sighed, stretching his arms over his head until his spine cracked. “The shambling corpses of the local zombies go to sleep, and the real life of the night wakes up.”

“How poetic,” Gladio snorted.

Ignis wasn’t really listening, instead staring in half-glazed revulsion at the empty table which had scorned his efforts this evening. He barely heard Prompto as he proceeded to bemoan the unfortunate loss of a venue for his latest project. He was shooting restaurants to update brochures, commissioned by Altissia’s Director of Tourism. The venue had closed last minute – something about health code violations – and he was down on his luck with finding a new one to take Noct to for staging casual dining shots…

“What luck,” Ignis said with sudden clarity. “I know just the number you should call.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Pity poor Iggy, these boys are tearing him apart inside. Also, since we're probably, vaguely around the halfway mark in this little tale, I just wanted to say thank you so much for all the sweet and wonderful support on this story! I'm so glad that everybody is enjoying this, thank you again! <3


End file.
